A convo with the spirit in the sky

As some of you may know, I had my birthday this past Sunday.
Leading up to it came those old familiar thoughts about whether i was "where i should be", whether or not i was "successful". I allowed them to pass like clouds yet elements of them lingered still.
My mother always says the best thing for emotion is motion and following this advice I have been on the move so to speak a great deal lately.

This dance of alternating meditation and outright exertion came to a close on Saturday. Greeting the last sunset and the first full moon of a new chapter in my life within the magical mountains of Malibu, I was received with so much love by people I hardly knew... from this life anyway.

My time there began with a dance party on a bus at dusk and closed with a sunrise vigil in the company of three powerful women breathing in the warm light of morning, it was an honor to know stillness in their company.

One of these angels specifically said something that keeps coming back to me, something i'd like to share with you all.

"success is just when reality catches up to your imagination"

On our walk back to camp, while eating fresh picked kumquats, occasionally stopping to pet the horses around the property this thought expanded a million fold. Imagining so much for us all, the possibilities are literally infinite.

I remembered how only a week earlier i'd imagined spending my birthday with a campfire, music, beautiful souls in a community setting and healing convo's and interactions abound. I had no clue how that would happen but the conjured energy felt amazing when i thought about it and so i let it.

Success is just when reality catches up to our imagination, it feels good to be successful and it's about damn time. :)

Imagining Love,
p

Grateful to Love!

Birthdays like holidays can be loaded with emotion at times.
To share a little of what that statement means to me...
my childhood best friend since Montessori school was an amazing light of being that went by the name of Andy Morgan, that's him up top.

Whether it was building forts in the woods and telling our parents we were moving out into our new dwelling to become monks or pestering my dad to buy us a zima after working all day in texas heat cleaning up a former hell's angel abode, all of my memories with Andy are treasured.
Growing up we spent most of our birthdays together, as they fell on the same day, and we always found a way to get into just enough trouble to be entertaining but not enough to get arrested.
My earliest communions with music were in his inspiring and passionate presence as well as the first conversations i can remember speculating about the nature of the universe.

In high school he got an early 70's hunter green cadillac as his first car and we would drive to lakes and local swimming holes listening to James Brown and laughing our asses off. The tune that often served as our soundtrack was the "the payback", a gem of a track that we'd blare into the streets singing, "i don't know karate but i know crazy" with smiles as wide as those caddy doors.

After high school Andy left Austin first and continued to inspire me with how he lived so courageously, like each day could be his last. Riding his bike from Washington state back to Texas one summer, backpacking through Europe, Patagonia and Tibet and eventually moving to NYC, he was always moving, laughing and loving.

After a visit to NYC in mid May of '05, he called me and said how much he loved hanging out and that he wanted me to make one promise, that i'd never stop dancing and freestyling. I said "of course brother" and thanked him for being in my life. He was hit on his bike on June 26 2005 at the corner of Houston and Elizabeth and left his body later that day.
I'm so grateful to of had that last conversation and I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to love him as I did and as I still do.

Tonight a friend took me to dinner and when my mind wandered to Andy, as it's his birthday too, James Brown sang us a little song that i want to share with you.

James Brown - The Payback


Grateful to Love this much,
p

The 5th of july

The day after a holiday is always an interesting time, you know?
As if just beyond the festivities and revelry lies what that holiday actually celebrates,
in the wild so to speak, uncaged by a calendar day.
In the case of this Independence day, i broke up a fight while people within ear shot were chanting freedom as a huge amount of oil continued to spew into the gulf of Mexico. Admittedly I see lots of changes needed and I have no doubt we can make these changes.

So what's the first step?

How about calling your local congressman and telling them you want clean, green renewable energy as the backbone of this country NOW!!!

You can find whom that may be here:


http://www.senate.gov/index.htm

http://www.house.gov/