Life is difficult. There is pain and suffering at every turn. No one is safe and everyone is finding themselves involved in an entanglement of dangers and yet...
Look at us? We somehow manage to find things to celebrate. We can pretend we are mermaids. We can have a laugh. We can enjoy being on our skin and rejoice in life. To some this may seem unfair. I thought so for a long time. How could anyone be happy when such horrors are being experienced by others in the very same minute I'm having fun? I finally logged in enough time in this life to be able to grasp the fact that while we are all connected in sorrow so are we all connected in joy. It is like a dance that rages on in the human condition on several planes of existence at once. To sacrifice our joy is just as much a travesty as wallowing in pain and vengeance. What boggles our minds is that two things (or more) can be true at once and that we are able to emotionally handle both/all of it. It is only in the past few hundred years of human evolution that we have had to try and process so much imagery and information from all over the world experienced by millions of people instantly! Of course we struggle to reconcile these things!
In regards to this picture of me and my grand daughters in cosplay as mermaids, we need to remember the creatures in and of us. Even the sea life finds time to play and they are in danger at all times of being prey to any number of threats in their water world. Still they dance, surf and frolic and even play with humans! Humans! Think of it! The biggest danger currently and historically to them that there is! Surfing with and visiting humans in kayaks and boats? There is joy in the world and it needs to be expressed and appreciated if for no other reason than to keep a balance so fear and an obsession over scarcity and a loss of independence does not overtake and destroy us all.
Hafiz suggests that for whatever reasons we are telling ourselves about how to live our lives, that we have an obligation to drink deeply from the well of joy in appreciation as this life is a gift.
Thank you for listening.
Music: I chose this rendition of Time of the Season (an old Zombies tune from the 60's) by the Dave Matthews Band because Matthews and his band are obviously having so much fun singing it and sharing it with the audience. The audience is rising to it. This reminds me, too, that there is a need for joy in the world as I listen to the crowd singing with the band and each other. Music and musicians deliver a lot of that abundance to us. To not celebrate this is just wrong.
The original post in this series of poems by Hafiz (including an addendum regarding the authenticity of these poems) can be found here. Also, my thoughts on this series a year into these poems, HERE.
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz and translated by Daniel Ladinsky can be purchased here.
My book can be purchased HERE. E-book HERE. The Season Two blogcasts with audio excerpts from my book begin HERE: in Behind The Lines. This reading of the book excerpts in a mixed media format is Season Two of this blog. These recorded excerpts are outside the chronological order in which the book was written. Podcasts with audio only beginning with episode 22 can be found HERE.
Enchantment under and over the Sea!
Red Rocks is an amazing venue. You get the immediate surroundings, the wonderful music, AND the view beyond the stage backdrop of city lights or (if you are lucky, as I was) lightning out over the plains.