I just got home from a Synergy workshop.  It was taught by a fellow Bikram yoga teacher who is opening a yoga studio in Lima, Peru.  He created Synergy, a fun blend of yoga asanas, Thai massage and flying fun.  He also teaches Capoeira to kids in the shantytowns in Lima. 

I was asked to come and take photographs at the workshop by a friend who is also a Bikram yoga teacher, massage therapist and now a Synergy teacher.  It worked out great because I really didn't have the dollars to spend to pay for the workshop which I was still hoping to be able to attend.  It was great too because making the photos didn't seem like work, it seemed like wonderful play. 

What a delightful gift to be given and to allow myself. 

That's me, flying upside down and backwards!!  Super fun.  I can't wait to show Adam all the fun stuff I learned while he was at work including some of the Thai massage techniques.  I bet he's gonna like it.  :-)

Here's a few more photos from the workshop. 







here's a link to the flickr set of all 200 or so photos from this workshop. 

it's my day off from work and from teaching yoga.  this morning I slept in til almost 7.  when I got up to let the dogs out and give them some food and water I opened my computer and peeked at my email.  I was thinking of popping into Gaia for a moment before I retired back to the bedroom to meditate for an hour.  I didn't make it to Gaia.  I got sidetracked by this email from a friend and another person's response to that email.  I'd like to share them here.

First I saw the email titled, "Fury, dread, Palin" and decided to skip it because I wasn't really in the mood for fury, dread or talk of Gov. Palin.  I hadn't even had coffee, breakfast, meditation or yoga yet.  How could I dive right into fury and dread, oh my.  But then I saw that a person I didn't know, named George (the name has not been changed, innocent or not, he probably doesn't need protecting.) and my curiosity got the better of me.  Without having read what he was responding to exactly, I opened and read this.....

It is an overstatement to say that if elected Palin would be the second most powerful person on the planet. It is also an overstatement to say she would be the second most powerful person in the U.S. What about the congress, i think that they are a far better representation of the people. Just to point out a few things, pro choice is defended all too often by "my body my choice" yada yada yada, how come this cant be applied to other situation? For example, raising a kid in a bad environment, "my kid, my choice". It doesn't work. Why should there be exceptions. Murder is murder, why should a woman be able to get away with it, and the father and the doctor and anyone else supporting her. Murder is murder, stealing is stealing, no exceptions. This isn't a question of personal beliefs, and letting someone decide for themselves, its a matter of morals, right and wrong. Why let somebody be immoral and be able to get away with it?

If you feel like she has a lack of preparation, don't vote for her, and run yourself. Obviously enough people support her or she wouldn't have been selected, and she wouldn't have had the success that she has had.

Do you call a woman vice president a slap in the face to the women who have fought for their rights? I don't think those women could believe that a woman was holding office in the white house!

If you want to disagree publicly, then don't vote for her. Support someone who represents your own views. I am assuming that whoever wrote that announcement was  a Democrat, so why worry about  Palin in the first place, just don't vote for her.  Worry more about supporting your candidate, instead of making un-backed up statements about the opponent.

-George


I took that bit of stuff back with me to my meditation place and observed my brain playing around with it, trying, as one does in meditation, not to be attached to the thought processes or the idea that I had to reply.  Then I realized that something (my wedding ring) was missing from my ring finger and that distracted me enough that I forgot about George and fury and dread and murder and women's rights and all sorts of things I ought to reply to my new email friend about and I watched my happy little mind beging to panic about the possible locations of my wedding ring all the while periodically saying, let it go for now, to myself.  On to the next subject -- haven't lost any weight.  Exhausted that one quickly.  Tried to panic and then not panic about my teen.  Went several mind rounds about the yoga class I taught last night and the feedback I'd gotten from another teacher.  Watched my mind try to get at the question of uncorrected vision vs custom contact lense vs glasses with the wrong prescription from all different angles.  Fretted a bit about my husband who is out of town for the week and didn't return my calls this morning or last night and then talked myself into letting it go, letting it all go, letting it all, all of it, go.  Remembered that yesterday is the past and I can't change yesterday anymore than I can change last year.  Told myself that I would think of the best action for each of my mental/emotional/physical dillemnas at the appropriate moment for taking action.  Told myself I could cross all those figurative bridges as I got to them.  Finished my hour of meditation in a relaxed, almost sleepy state.  Called my sister and talked about our kids and our thought processses and whether we would meet and go swimming with our kids this afternoon.  Went to yoga.  Found my wedding ring on top of the water dispenser where I left it after class last night.  Let all the rest of it go out of my mind as I focused on balancing on one foot while kicking the other back and over my head.  Stretched my body instead of my mind in every direction while looking into a blurry reflection of myself in the mirror: no glasses or custom made contacts, just my own imperfect vision -- or is that my own perfect vision?  The places where I end and you begin look very different without vision correction.  :-)   Finished yoga, came home for a luxurious shower and did laundry, put things in their own special places, played with the dogs and then checked email again. 

and then, I felt compelled but peacefully so, to respond to what George had typed.  I really had some questions for him.  Questions that I was genuinely curious about the answer to.  So here's what I replied.....

George,

I didn't read the thing about Palin that you are responding to, but I did read your response with interest and curiosity.  I find it interesting to think about the idea that abortion is murder.  So does this mean that you believe life begins at conception?  Do you support the idea that every child who is born should be a wanted child who will be well cared for, loved and nurtured and not neglected or starved for love and affection?  Do you believe that birth control and family planning are good things?  Or do you think that abstinence is the only morally acceptable way to prevent babies.  Personally, I would like to see more family planning, better sex education, free birth control and condoms for young people along with that education.  I don't think that we should encourage our kids to have sex for the sake of having sex, but I do think that often times they are going to have sex no matter what we say and in that case I think they should be well educated about how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.  I think that Governor Palin's behavior toward her own children and her own family are admirable, but I have to wonder if her daughter was subject to abstinence only sex eduction at home and at school or if she was exposed to the knowledge of how to properly use a condom or if she had access to birth control pills? 

I meditated this morning after reading your email and I wondered about your opinions on war and hunting.  Is hunting considered murder to you?  I am not a hunter, but many in my family are and some of my best friends are hunters.  I think hunting is probably more humane is some cases than raising food animals in horrible conditions just for slaughter and market.  Do you think arial hunting of wolves and polar bears is ok?  or do you believe that we should treat all God's creatures with respect and dignity?  Do you think that there is any difference between, say, bow hunting, hunting with a high powered rifle on foot or horseback or hunting from a low flying airplane, running the terrified animals to exhaustion and then slaughtering them?  

I was wondering what you think about war?  And I was wondering, really, from a very respectful, again curious, place in myself.  Is it murder, plain and simple for a soldier to kill another soldier, no matter what the cause?  Is the death penalty murder, sanctioned by the state.  I know that some people quote the Bible as saying an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth is the right way for us to deal with ne'r do wells, but to me an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth soon leaves the whole world blind and toothless.  Do you agree? 

I am most definitely going to be voting for Obama / Biden in this election.  Wholeheartedly.  I will be voting for clean, renewable energy.  Protection for our lakes, rivers, steams and oceans.  Protections for clean air.  More and better funding for education from kindergarten through college and for libraries too.  I will be voting for bringing our troops home and more diplomacy and discourse in foreign policy.  I will be voting for better care and more benefits for our veterans of war.  I will be voting for more funding for family planning, including the family planning agencies that believe that it is a woman's right to choose whether she will become a mother or not.  I don' t know a single woman who wouldn't take that choice seriously and many who don't believe in having an abortion, but do believe that it is a very personal and individual decision made between a woman and God in whatever form she chooses to believe or not believe.  I will not be voting against McCain / Palin, but I certainly will not be voting for that ticket.  I would not like either of them to represent my whole country to the world and I would not like either of them to be Commander in Chief of the US armed forces nor to hold a veto stamp in their hand.

Here in Colorado I will cast my vote for Mark Udall for the Senate.  Again because I believe in a clean, renewable, sustainable future for this state, for this country, for the whole planet which I love dearly and deeply.  I will vote for Udall to represent me because I care about clean air, clean water, education and individual rights.  I do not care for my tax money to subsidize oil companies for one minute longer and I do not care for my tax dollars to support an unjustifiable, immoral war that benefits those very corporations -- big oil, halliburton, the military industrial complex.  I want my tax dollars spent on the things that I know in my heart will bring more peace and prosperity to each and every person who those dollars touch.  I don't want my taxes buying bullets or bombs, not at all.  I wish I could just designate what they would be spent on when I pay my taxes.  Wouldn't that be cool???

On that note, I'd like to share this short video, and ask everyone who reads this email to search their minds and go deep within their hearts to decide what they want to vote FOR in this election. 

And I completely agree with your last paragraph George.  We should all be putting as much energy into supporting our candidates of choice in as positive way as possible and leaving the attacks out.   And I'm glad, though I've never met you, that we have this opportunity to have this conversation.

May you be well and happy,

-Dawn Dexter
Snowmass, Colorado


then, I decided to read what George was responding to in the first place.  After meditation, a chat with my sis, yoga, a chat with some fellow yogis and teachers, a yummy shower, putting some things in order, playing with the dogs, having a little lunch and some tea, I felt much better prepared for the email with the subject, "Fury, dread, Palin" and here's what I found.......


Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters,
> >
> >
> > We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have
> > felt since the
> > announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential
> > candidate for the
> > Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision
> > has surpassed mere
> > partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farceon the part
> > of a pandering and
> > rudderless Presidential candidatethat has a real
> > possibility of becoming
> > fact.
> >
> > Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of
> > what Ms. Palin and
> > her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for
> > ourselves and for
> > our present or future daughters. To date, she is against
> > sex education,
> > birth control, the pro-choice platform, environmental
> > protection,
> > alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor
> > she wanted to
> > ban books and attempted to fire the librarian who stood
> > against her), gun
> > control, the separation of church and state, and polar
> > bears. To say nothing
> > of her complete lack of real preparation to become the
> > second-most-powerful
> > person on the planet.
> >
> > We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a
> > woman, a mother,
> > or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but
> > solely as a rash,
> > incompetent, and all together devastating choice for Vice
> > President. Ms.
> > Palin's political views are in every way a slap in the
> > face to the
> > accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and
> > great-grandmothers so
> > fiercely fought for, and that we've so demonstrably
> > benefited from.
> >
> > First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She
> > does not
> > demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It
> > is presumed that
> > the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win
> > over women
> > voters. We want to disagree, publicly.
> >
> > Therefore, we invite you to reply here
> > <mailto:womensaynopalin@gmail.com<womensaynopalin@gmail.com>>
> > with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman
> > living in this
> > country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command
> > for our nation.
> >
> > Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and
> > place of
> > residence.
> >
> > We will post your responses on a blog called "Women
> > Against Sarah Palin,"
> > which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please
> > send us your
> > reply at your earliest conveniencethe greater the volume of
> > responses we
> > receive, the stronger our message will be.
> >
> > Thank you for your time and action.
> >
> > VIVA!
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Quinn Latimer and Lyra Kilston
> > New York, NY
> > womensaynopalin@gmail.com
> > <mailto:womensaynopalin@gmail.com<womensaynopalin@gmail.com>
> > >
> >
> > **PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY! If you send this to 20 women in
> > the next hour, you
> > could be blessed with a country that takes your concerns
> > seriously. Stranger
> > things have happened.
> >
>
> >
>
> > --
> > Change will not come if we wait for some other person or
> > some other time. We
> > are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change
> > that we seek. ~Barack
> > Obama
>


Hmmm.  Did Sarah Palin indeed try to ban books and try to fire a librarian for not going along with the plan?  This should be quite a drama for my mind to play with for awhile.  Ban books!?!  Them's fightin' words!! 

Is there really an us and a them?  Is there really a black and a white?  Is it really all in my mind?  Am I a woman AGAINST Palin?  Hmmm. 

I do know I am FOR libraries, FOR books, FOR education. 

Am I against fat?  or for a healthy, strong, supple, bod?  Am I against guns?  or for responsibility?  am I against life?  (as in pro choice) or for life -- all of it.

I am most definitely FOR love of life.  I am most definitely for living large with a small environmental footprint.  I'm for beauty and truth and YUM and wahoo!! 

that brought me in mind of this wonderful blog and discussion at otter's blogging place.  I highly suggest reading this if you have time. 

what are you for?  what are you against? 

me -- I'm against auto spell on my phone texting thing--- I just hate when I type okey dokey and the silly phone turns it into okey foley--- wft??!! 

xoxo
-d

p.s.  I do know that I don't FEAR Gov. Palin or John McCain.  I see desperation in the Republican Party.  I see empty promises and a hollow shell of the fierce, crazy machine that elected President Bush.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Let's don't fear the bad policies that have gotten us into this big mess.  Let's just fix them.  Let's all LOVE our communities, our state, our countries, our planet and each other enough to find a clean, beautiful, sustainable future together.  And let's be sweet to Sarah and John and maybe they'll come along, even if we don't vote for them.  After all -- shooting them with a disintegrator ray gun probably would be immoral.  :-) 

the most basic answer for me is that life, for humans, begins and ends with breath.  first breath is when we are not anymore part of our mother and our dying breath is self explanatory.  machines can now help us breathe and in so doing can extend life.  we can jump start someone who is in respiratory and cardiac arrest, but there is a very small window of time for that.  without breath the heart will soon stop.  without the heart to pump fresh oxygnated blood to the brain, damage soon occurs.  without breath, heart, brain -- our consciousness goes elsewhere. 

I wonder if every living organism breathes, even the smallest single celled creatures, do they breathe? 

here's what I've been doing for the past two hours.  Guess the google.


addendum: 

some might say I didn't accomplish much today, but I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment.  I read a couple of chapters of "fierce invalids home from hot climates" by tom robbins.  I taught a rockin' yoga class to 13 very dedicated bikram yoga students.  after tidying up the yoga studio I did 103 practice hand stands.  only about 5 of them counted as actual handstands held for like 3 seconds.  the 44th one ended with me collapsing somehow and cracking my head hard on the floor, but I persevered.  then I came home and finally accomplished my goal of getting into the high score page of this silly game.  the tenactiy that I had for the game today (maybe 4 hours total play) is what inspired the 100 attempted handstands.  then 3 more for good measure.  :-) 

I bet I'll see tinkonthebrink in the top 10 scores soon!  :-)


I'm trying to get the high score screan shot to upload, but it won't let me for some reason.  I guess I'll have to try again later.

see previous blog to understand what the heck this screen shot means!  I've never been in the top 10 high score of an online game before.  I'm tickled.  (it's the little things, isn't it?!)

I've love, love, love, love, loved this song for so long and it always makes me feel GOOD.

I was so pleasantly surprised to find this incredible video accompaniement on you tube.  Apparently it was an assignment....

"This was done for a motion graphics class in the SVA MFA Design program. The assignment was to create a music video using just type and typographic elements in black and white. The song choice was up to us. The professor was Gail Anderson.  "

The student / incredibly talented artist....  Tamara Connolly.

enjoy....




well -- that was so much fun I have to share another one  -- this one is not the theme song of my life, but it was so much fun being in nyc last october with farland and jordan and margo and seeing paul and natalie and amy and nancy and kiley too that this one works -- plus I'd forgotten how much I love "they might be giants"! 



they totally get it.  :-) 


oh heck -- I just found this one and I love it too!  I wish I could see all of the assignments that were turned in for that class.  the students / artists all chose the lovelist most fun songs!! 


I've never heard "the magnetic fields"  but by golly I'm going to hear some more of their stuff some day I'd say.  :-)  here you go.....



here's another -- I don't know if it was for the same class -- but it's too sweet, music and video -- not to share.....






hmmmm.  it occurs to me that I wish Adam (my sweet husband who came away with me years ago) was on gaia.  maybe then I'd know if he ever reads me blog.  I'm gonna ask him again to become a gai.  hee hee hee.  :-) 


help!  i can't stop.  got to go to bed, but this one is so cool.......  I have to share it.  I think it might give me some memory/insight into the plight of all the lovely 20 somethings in the world.  a few lovelly teens I know will be 20 somethings soon too.  and the video is so much fun! 




that's all for now folks.  tune in, maybe next month, when miss dawn might have almost a whole day to play on the computer again.

xoxo
-d

six months ago - I thought it was the most important question -- i guess for me it's still an important question.  see here........  

http://synonymforlight.gaia.com/blog/2008/3/what_is_the_most_important_question_in_the_world

autumn

a lull
a release
a tumble
of kaleidoscope leaves

autumn

a wine colored leaf
a snuggle
a sneeze
incited by a chimney tinged breeze

autumn

a beginning
an end
a long walk
with a cherished wild friend

autumn

a word
a label
an overflowing
abundance filled
shared table


autumn

a sky
a mountain side
a riot of color
soon muted by mist
then buried by snowslide

autumn

a nostalgia
a hope
an ache
of a future passed (past)
a heart about to break
from the joy of this present
gift of a moment

autumn

an old love
made new
by a breath
by you

autumn

something
nothing
everything
love
still

autumn

again....



and then again maybe this...............

fall

a truth
a lie
a slice of pie

word strings by dawn d, aka synonym for light, aka unicycle grrl, aka me
no rights reserved
all are given freely to do with as you will.
period.

xoxo
-d

I'm in these shoes.  I'm thinking of writing a love song.  I'm in a coffee house.  I'm sitting at a table.  I'm lost in thought.  I'm online, visiting friends.  I'm here now.  I'm faraway.  I'm nostalgic.  I'm hopeful.  I'm smiling to myself because of the man who is reading to his child from a book about kids who are on a field trip from their school learning about ants.  The man and child are at the table across the isle from where I'm sitting at this coffee shop in colorado where I am online and lost in thought and here now and hearing music muffled by the ceiling fan and kitchen noise and they are also visiting a far away place which only exists inside a book where there are kids on a field trip from their school learning about ants.  The little boy and his dad are talking about the antenae of the ants and the internet now.  They are all smiles.  

I'm reviewing where I've been, where I've come from, where I want to go.  I am smiling because a child smiled at me.  I'm am smiling because some friends will read this.  I am smiling because a woman at the next table is smiling while she is reading something to herself.  I'm am smiling because I'm in these shoes here now and because the girl behind the counter is playing punk music with fast drums and a cute boy singing and there is a man in the front of the coffeehouse debating loudly with another man and the one wearing the cowboy hat and cowboy boots and wrangler jeans is arguing passionately for saving the planet from the certain destruction of..................... I didn't catch all of it. 

This is my life at this moment and I am grateful for it.  This is a good life, a good moment.  There is something animating me, making me bouyant.  Maybe it is the ma-tay la-tay.  Maybe it's the red chairs.  Maybe it's the red couch.  Maybe it's the breeze blowing through.  Maybe it's the bluest blue sky outside and the cool fall air and the blazingest yellowest orange leaves constrasting the blue of the bluest sky ever, at least since yesterday.  Maybe it's just life and love.  Maybe I've finally found out that if this is ALL there is, that's ok with me.  Maybe I don't have to do great things and make big impressions on the world to be happy as I thought was the case when I was younger.  Maybe being great is just deeply enjoying and loving well. 

I read this quote recently -- you can't squeeze orange juice from a banana.  you can't give hate if all you have inside is love.  Actually that's not the quote at all.  I can't remember the exact words of it, but that is the gist of it.  Maybe you can't be anxiety if all you have is peace inside.  Maybe practice makes us one day so filled with peace and love that we stop having room for fear and anxiety and hate???  maybe. 

I just reread this and I realized I ought to put it somewhere where I might see it more often.....

from wo-manifesto or never say never...  by me... awhile ago. 

I will be the change I want to see and i will NOT tell you what to be. or how to be or who to be or what to do. though i will tell the truth of my experience to you most especially when your actions are affecting me which is likely to happen sooner or later in this universe of interconnectedness.

I will love exuberantly and ask lots of pertinent and impertinent questions and believe the answers and I will NOT be too careful or too safe or too quiet or too still.

I will be light and allow darkness it's quiet places and stillnesses too.

I will allow all behavior and choose my own carefully & lovingly & courageously.

I will believe in everything and have a healthy skepticism and be unattached to outcome.

I will live with gratitude and gusto. I will use all the glorious senses and gifts I have been given.

I will continue to expand my capacity to be delighted. Being delighted is so damn much fun.

I will practice loving unconditionally which does not involve commands to be a certain way or lists of do's and don'ts, but does involve being honest about my experiences and does involve being interested in other's honest experiences, ie - really listening.

I will recognize fear in myself and others and respond to it with love and patience, rather than more fear.

I will put these commitments into practice most dilligently in my interactions with those that are physically and emotionally closest to me.

I will walk my talk and share the challenges and joys of doing so-- as in riding my bike to work and/or speaking up and risking being shot down. :-)

I will never stop learning. (darn -- I said never. giggle.)


there is something just about stopping in at gaia that makes me more peaceful and more loving.  Maybe it's just that I have repeatedly declared these intentions here publicly over and over again and maybe doing so makes me more so.  certain friends have a way of bringing a smile to one's face just by exisiting.  many on gaia are like that-- just seeing their icon or their name gives me a feeling of happiness.  I am smiling with my heart right now because of those friends on gaia and elsewhere, because they exist. 

xox
-d

today was a full and rich day.  I cannot tell the story now.  I may tell the story tomorrow. 

for now I'd just like to share a teaser of a photograph.  maybe the autumn question and resulting poem brought me here. 

xo
-d

relax my shoulders, inhale, exhale, smile, pay attention, practice patience, gratitude, appreciation. 

I like to greet the unknown with a smile.  it seems to be the best way to begin relationships, even the ones that last for mere seconds, even relationships with the sky or with rocks.  I have some friends that are as changable and gorgeous as the sky.  I have some friends that are sturdy  and consistent as rocks, nearly.  I didn't know which ones would be which before I met them, but a smile is always a nice way to start getting to know one another.

xoxo
-d

I like Leonard's answer. 

"What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence."  -- Leonard Cohen

Several people have said to me that my husband should be nominated for sainthood, mostly for putting up with my wild and craziness.  Actually it's usually after hearing of the way he loved and took care of me when my right eye was so sick with an infection that there was some question if the docs could even keep me from losing the eye entirely.  I was drugged with pain medication and also had to put eye drops into my eye every 15 minutes day and night.  We kept alarms set and Adam woke me every 15 minutes day and night for days and days and then every half hour, day and night for weeks.  Even when I said, "no!  I don't care!  I won't wake up and put in drops!" (as an extra bonus, the drops were painful, stinging and burning in the eye.),  Even then, Adam was loving and patient and caring.   Even when he was sleep deprived and worried and trying to get me and himself and Jordan and two cars back from LA to Colorado (thankfully with a little help from my mom and sister & her husband and my brother too) and I was drugged and unreasonable, he never wavered.  This all happend just months after Adam & I got married.  The week after we married, I left for L.A for 9 weeks of yoga teacher training and Adam and Jordan were in LA for my graduation.  Graduation day at the end of November is the day my eye decided to be sick and it was May of the next year before things went back to a semblance of normalcy.  I think that illness was actually a gift.  In our first year of marriage, I was given the gift of discovering just how deeply my husband loved me.  Experiencing the depth and consistency of my husband's love was "eye opening" for me.  There had never been another time in my lfie in which I was as acutely aware of how deeply and well I was loved, and not just by Adam, but by Jordan and my mom and my sister and brother and so many wonderful friends.  When I think of it I often cry with gratitude for the gift of that realization -- for how sad it would be to be loved that much and not even be aware of it.  The amount of love in the world is astounding to me.  So yes, I completely agree with Leonard's quote. 

What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence."  -- Leonard Cohen

and by that definition I am blessed, blessed, blessed to have had my life touched by so many, many saints. 

Two days ago I spent the day with Aimee and her friends from the other side of Colorado  She called to surprise me on Thursday, saying they were driving up to our area as we spoke.  We had dinner together that night and they said that they were spending the following day on a drive to visit an organic farm which they have been considering buying and working with their new little family.  We were having such a nice time that evening that I decided to tag along the next day.  They invited me to share a seat in their car so I wouldn't have to drive and it was a grand outing.  I got to sit next to the car seat and make faces at the nine week old baby the whole way.  We took a short detour to one of my favorite places in the world and the fall colors were amazing.  At the end of the day we all went to a lovely cafe in Carbondale to watch the debate with a motley, wild, beautiful group of Obama supporters -- it turned out to be standing room only. 

While posting the photos from that day on flickr this morning I was inspired to write this.....

I met Aimee at Bikram Yoga Teacher Training in Los Angeles in the autumn of 2006.  I'd been practicing Bikram Yoga for several years, since I'd moved back to the Basalt, Colorado area with Adam who has since become my husband.  I met Adam at work at APCCC after he moved here from Alabama to work for the local Police Dept.  I came to work at APCCC after having worked at a different dispatch center for a couple of years and I would never have worked at that dispatch center if my beloved Avalon Cafe had not closed it's doors for business.  My roommate, E, introduced me to the owner's of the Avalon Cafe when their children and my Jordan were just babies.  E doesn't live here anymore.  She's moved to another part of Colorado to live and work and raise her family.  I met E and we subsequently became roommates because she was dating my old friend and an ex boyfriend, G.  She's not dating G anymore.  G is the reason for so many wonderful people in my life, including a long story of how I came to know Farland Fish and he lives in Portland, Oregon now with his gorgeous family.  I met G because he and my little sister were friends and she introduced me to all her friends when I came back from a time of living in Portland, Oregon as a young woman.  The whole point of all of this is just that without each person in my life, so many other experiences may not have come to be.  Every moment holds an infinite possibility for the future.  Going forward chronologically it all seems so unknown, but going backward to how I got here, meeting each person, valuing and cultivating new friendships while letting others rest and grow in new directions -what a strange and wonderful web it begins to be, not a straight line by any means.  And of my most cherished saints (friends, family)--- I never planned for a single one of them to touch my life---  I just allowed them to when they arrived. 

Also -- it occurs to me often that if we hadn't needed to go to Denver so often to see my eye surgeon, Adam & I might never have found this very special place.   But then again, we might have anyway.  Who knows?  Certainly not me.