Pass the Peace and Prayers, please...

I string tiny prayer flags, a kaleidescope of colors, across the morning windows....a reminder to believe, to see, to remember, to be thankful, to imagine, to pray, to be at peace.....And when the sun shines through, their tattered colors dance across my dirty floors...And I embrace another accidental gift...

This is it....the end of the year I will forever embrace....and the beginning of the one I was sure I would only imagine....

I've heard tell~tell that how you bring in the New Year is how you'll spend it...and I peek outside for a moment and smile at the tilted moon, quietly applaud the fireworks in a not too far distance, and  hum a little Johnny as the old boxcar rolls down the tracks, for just a moment, snuffing out everything but memories and my imagination....

I look down and the hemline of my flannel PJ's are muddy...proof that a river really is in my backyard and that no matter how many times I wander there, I have to touch the very edge .....have to feel the faint ripple of at least one wayward wake...before I turn around and head for home again...

I might not make it to midnight....
I won't tear up the dance floor....
trip in my high heels on the way out the door...
No, I won't  be Cinderella...this year.....

But if I fall asleep in Peace, and wake up to the River running.....
I have a feeling,
my year will be very, very Blessed....

May yours, too.....
Be the Gift....

The Tin Can Parade

The water is shallow tonight.  Muddy and almost warm, snaking by in slow motion..... And the edge of the sky sways a little....just above the dark forest of skinny little cypress witch fingers....their knotted hands waving.....

It's a spooky little night...

And a good one....

At dark....one by one, the endless strands of lights connect...the electric colors pop, flash, glow and the tiny little tin-can houses dotting the water begin to dance.....a cobweb of extension cords joins neighbor to neighbor, sign post to street lamp....and if you listen....
on this silent night.....
you'll hear the the merry "clink" of wine glass to Beer Bottle....
and sleighbells....
in the sky...
or
in my little hippie imagination....

Merry Christmas!  May the Gift be the moment.....the peace...the love....And may the Circle be unbroken....

The Colors of Peace

And so I flew barefooted
over the loose gravel and down the damp embankment
to the muddy edge
of Peace.....

Fat ducks waddling before me,
and wet dogs .... nose to the ground and tails to the sky...
trailing behind me....

This is Home now....
where the sky is wet watercolor paper....
soaking up our moods,
our stories,
our fate,
and casting it into eternity...
a technicolor drive-in movie splashing before  us...
The colors of now.....

Yes, this is Home now...

Where the bugs have tiny motorboat engines for hearts
and the snakes are bigger than make believe....
where our little glass houses are cellophane tents
and our twisted stories are peppermints.
little party favors for the passing....

I click the camera...
savor the captured wild sky one more time....

And remember....

Every day is the Gift....

And this one is mine......

May your sky be as blessed....