REVERB10: WE HAVE ALL WE NEED RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW

Hallelujah for the PRESENT! Hallelujah for BEING HERE RIGHT NOW! Dear PILGRIMS, if I learned one important lesson in 2010, it was KNOWING this: WE HAVE ALL WE NEED, right here, right now.

2009 was a year of loss for me. Three friends died too young, unanticipated deaths. Mark, Luis, and Sally—all three should be drinking eggnog, wrapping gifts, and celebrating the holiday season. Instead there is an absence, a gap, a yawning yearning for their presence, for LIFE to CONTINUE as ALWAYS.

But MY LIFE and YOUR LIFE, dear PILGRIMS who are reading this, our LIVES continue—we HAVE LIFE. Being ALIVE meets part of our “having” needs. Then there is the need of being present to ourselves and one another—LOVE.

In 2009, I celebrated a “niners” party—my birthday fell on 9/9/09. So I invited nine women to be with me on September 9^th. I asked each person to bring a poem, art, a dance, or an idea as a gift. Sally Wylde made me a humongous black card 18” x 12.” An image of HALLELUJAH was dancing on the cover. The only words inside written in yellow were: “WE HAVE ALL WE NEED.” I laughed. It seemed so simple!

Thank you Sally. In 2010, as you confronted the end of your LIFE, you were 100 percent present. YOU HAD US, and we felt HAD. Thank you for this simple lesson.

Since your death, I have dwelled on this concept of having all I need. In 2011, I plan to breathe deep and love what is around me. I pledge to be present to what I have and to honor everyone and everything. Hallelujah!

Thank you REVERB10 for Devember 17^th’s PROMPT: Lesson Learned. What was the best thing that you learned about yourself in the past year? How will you apply that lesson going forward?

PILGRIMS SOUL BLOG with me and let me know 2010 lesson and its application in 2011.

REVERB10: HALLELUJAH FOR the GLORIOUS 2010 MEMORIES!

Hallelujah for MEMORY. Hallelujah for both surface and deep time. Hallelujah for ways of KNOWING and BEING here on this GLORIOUS EARTH. I will not forget the color pink, Chiboogamoo’s 50^th birthday celebration, holding my 16 year-old feline Misha every day and appreciating him in his late years more teddy bear than tooth and claw, and the one solid month of teaching English to extraordinary and dedicated Korean executives at GT.

I want to REMEMBER winter explorations along the Victorian coast of Australia—the pungent woody scent of resin on my hands from grasping shrubs along the cliff face, the pounding ocean hammering the gray Cretaceous rocks along the shore, the utter freedom and playfulness of being with the “boys” on a treasure hunt looking for life traces from 100 million years ago.

Still in Australia, but in Queensland, I want to REMEMBER endless hours of driving on one trackroads in the outback seeing kangaroos hop under scrubby eucalyptus trees as we dodged oncoming mammoth roadtrains. Exploring a culture both on the surface and in deep time. Enjoying “cowboy” towns and their saloons, bush poetry, and XXXX beer. At the same time, imagining the vast ocean that covered this expanse of earth millions of years ago and the large marine animals that lived, died and left their bones to be found by curious sheep musterers.

Back in Atlanta, I want to REMEMBER the good 8 months that we four Spiritual Art Pilgrims intensely interacted with each other through our art, yearning to expand our connection with the GREAT MYSTERY. How we succeeded in BEING present to one another and using our art as vehicles to deepen our understanding.

I want to REMEMBER the JOY I experienced “being” HALLELUJAH and “doing” 15 minutes of creativity EACH DAY—even while I was in Australia! I want to remember collaborating with Cecelia Kane, Lesly Fredman, and Jesse Bathrick to make “Sally” prints on my birthday for Sally Wylde’s memorial parade. And the other collaborative art making with Robey, Sally, Jesse, and Karen and all the senior artmakers at the Clarkston Community Center and Sally’s writing group.

I will REMEMBER last moments with Sally imagining her future pilgrimages and holding Luis’ hand and smoothing the hair over his brow. Sunday brunch to say goodbye to Kiona and Syd as they headed off to California to start their business, Curious Cup. I am thankful for and will REMEMBER the deepening friendships with Judy, Jane, Robey, Cecelia, Jacq Marie, Edna, Jesse, and Karen. And how I sparked new friendships with Lisa, Sylvia, Kimme, Kathe, Mary Jane, and Gal in our Decatur community. I will REMEMBER Trixie, Darlene, Tina, Gale, and Rob connecting with me on Facebook as well as how Facebook brought me back in touch with cousins Karen, Annette, and Paul!

Hallelujah for REVERB10 for giving me the opportunity to REMEMBER and HOLD DEAR those very important events from 2010. MEMORY. Hallelujah for ways of KNOWING and BEING here on this GLORIOUS EARTH. SOUL BLOG with Hallelujah and tell me what you want to REMEMBER from 2010.

REVERB10: REMEMBRANCES OF CELEBRATIONS, BOTH LIFE AND DEATH

Hallelujah to CELEBRATIONS! In 2010 there were gatherings to commemorate birthdays, retirements, paleontological friendship, and death. (In one of these photos, you will see me standing by a painting of mine about the Life and Death cycle of the American Oyster Catcher, inspired by Jennifer Hilburn, ornithologist at St Catherines)

In Decatur, Georgia, my Chiboogamoo partied for three nights in a row during the week of April 15^th to acknowledge his half-century presence on this planet. We went from a neighborhood drop-by with beer, pizza and world music playing on the boombox, to Friday night drinking beer in Emory Village at Everybody’s with colleagues from the Department of Environmental Studies, to a bonafide bash on Saturday night with Greek food and performances of poetry, song, and drama provided by birthday guests from multiple layers of my brilliant husband’s life.

A little more than a month later, another decade birthday rocketed in Candler Park, 3 miles down the road in Mulberry Fields Community Garden with the cooing of nesting chickens and goats. To celebrate Jesse Bathrick and Lesly Fredman, cool, creative tigresses and newly minted 60 year-olds, everybody ate potluck dishes of fresh vegetables and fruit from the Dekalb Farmer’s Market served in large ceramic bowls. We danced to the Band of Desperate Men and drank cold white wine and beer. I left before the fireworks!

June brought a heart-wrenching celebration—a commemoration party to honor my best friend Jane’s husband, Luis Caamano (my friend too—see Hallelujah blogs). Loved and admired by his Dominican community, workplace colleagues, golfing companions, neighbors, and fellow martial artists, Luis was remembered magnificently at the Sung Ming Shu Dojo in Grant Park. Long tables were weighted down with homemade sandwiches, dips, beans, sweets and alcoholic beverages provided by one of his best friends, owner of the Candler Park Market. His mother Juanita, son Eddy, and close friends told stories about him that had us weeping and rolling on the floor with laughter! His dojo awarded him his black belt posthumously, only after they had taken the test in “proxy” for him. He would have received this black belt within weeks of his death. Photomontages encapsulated Luis’ 47 years of life. Most amusing of all was a video of him belly dancing with his close Dominican friends.

Oh! I could go on and on about the festive gatherings of 2010! At the end of June, there was the paleontological party that Mike and Naomi Hall gave for my Chiboogamoo and me in Melbourne before we headed off to do fieldwork along the coast of Victoria. We were hosted with much good cheer the evening of the same day that I arrived in Australia. My jetlag in conjunction with the red wine served with spicy homemade Indian cuisine left me in a somewhat elated and exalted state! For those who are crazily insane about the Cretaceous, the conversation couldn’t have been better! In addition to graduate students and the exceptionally talented paleo-artist Peter Trusler, Tom Rich, from the Museum of Victoria, was there with his wife and collaborator, Patricia Vickers-Rich, paleontologist at Monash University and director of its Science Centre. I never ceased to be amazed how shared interests create such excellent camaraderie. Chiboogamoo and I were Americans enfolded in warm Australian paleo-hospitality!

Later, at the end of the summer, once we had returned to the US and back to our respective schools, we applauded close friend Judy Carpenter for “not” going back to work at her retirement party. Champagne was consumed in large amounts.

I will conclude my memories of celebrations with one that takes all the air out of me. Unfortunately, my community had another dear friend to say good-bye to. On September 11, we mustered together bouquets of rosemary, sunflowers, zinnias—any fragrant living plant we could take from our gardens to honor Sally Wylde’s life at the Oakhurst Baptist Church. After songs were sung and stories told, we paraded to the Oakhurst Community Garden carrying puppets of cardinal heads, butterflies, and whimsical animals as well as Sally’s artwork on sticks. The paraders were accompanied by drumming and then a New Orlean’s style-band. Some of us danced because Sally would have liked us to! At the garden, we ate potluck dishes and drank wine and beer as the sun set and the white Christmas lights strung about the garden illuminated us all.

2010 was filled with Loving Celebrations of LIFE and DEATH. Hallelujah for friends and community to laugh, sing, cry, and dance with!