This is a story about gratitude. How sometimes we get the opportunity to live out our highest dreams and find ourselves part of vast loving family, where there is no place on Earth that we are not at home. It is also a story about fearfulness and ignorance, for the condition of humanity makes us into strangely perverse and frightened little creatures, cut off from our divinity and wisdom. It is a story about courage, the courage to persevere in the face of our smallness, and believe that we have the capacity to transcend some of our limitations and carry within us the seeds of something great and beautiful, even though we are not really sure what greatness and beauty are.

     It is the story of one particular journey. A narrative of a landscape of becoming. As in all tales, there are perhaps morals embedded in the telling, since as human beings we can not help but have our points of view. But this tale contains no map for others to follow, for each must find the tapestry of joy and significance in their own unique environs. We tell this tale because it is a song that asks to be sung. Some of you will find resonance in these pages. If you are weary on your way, you may find encouragement for lifting up your backpacks and continuing upon your own good road home.

     Please know that this story makes no claims on truth. For only Creator knows the multiplicity of weavings that create each divine moment. The voices of this story each have their own perspectives, their own reality tunnels for what is true for them. If our perspectives differ from yours, then we have given you a glimpse of another way of being and perceiving on this most wonderful and complex dimension that we call Planet Earth. We are not teachers, nor tradition keepers. We are fellow journeyers who would in times past recount our travels with our clan besides the evening fires. In these times, our clans are far afield. Many hide in the disguise of different nations, different races, yet we are kindred, and when we meet it is like long lost brothers and sisters and cousins coming home, exciting sharing our adventures in the time of separation.

     So sit back, relax, and let us weave our tale for you today. Tomorrow, perhaps you will share your story, and together we can celebrate the unimaginable richness of our time here together on the journey we call Life. 

     I was born on the day after Lamas on the full moon in Leo. It is the time of fullness and ripeness, when the dog days of summer settle in and we begin the inexorable turning towards autumn. As i begin to write, I have begun my fiftieth year on the planet, a time of ripeness when one begins to realistically look at one's own mortality. Perhaps, it is because of my placement on the astological wheel of life that I have always been intrigued by cycles. In the bloom of summer, I am keenly aware of the approach of winter, and in the depth of winter, I can clearly see the summer sky appear above the frozen earth.

     I strive to be a spiritual person. Fundamentally I am a warrior. The gap is a big stretch.

     Spirituality. It is a word that evokes in many of us the image of white clad beatific beings floating calmly through the world, untouched by the mud and mire of everyday life. It has echoes of non attachment to the lowly mundane concerns that affect mere mortals.  Actually, that image has a lot of similarities to the contemporary Christian idea of heaven. Heaven is nice. The only problem is that when you are in heaven, you are dead. You do not feel with the touch of your hands of your skin, you do not see with your eyes or hear with your ears. You are dead.

So what is living spirituality? One that reconciles with being fully alive, of being capable of giving birth, making love, eating food and going to the bathroom? The alive part of our selves that in the twentieth century western world has to pay rent or mortgages and car payments, juggle credit cards.

     Too often we are presented with a choice between renunciation and sin. Many of the world's dominant organized religions have this as an underlying undercurrent. Not just obvious Christianity, but Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism stress this theme. Although we consider Mother Teresa holy, most of us do not consider washing diapers, cleaning dishes sacred.

     I know Creator has a strange sense of humor. Why else would we be expected to act as step down transformers to filter the enormous potential and wonder of our soul natures through these tiny personality selves? Sometimes I envision the four directions as the Marx Brothers. Perhaps it is only through acknowledging the profound absurdity of our conditions that we can find transformation.