Wish Dave a WILD AND PRECIOUS, attention, love, and writing filled birthday on November 21

Happy Belated Birthday Dave!!
Just kidding about the old man! :) young at heart!
I know you will succeed at changing the world and I’m right there with you!! :)
I hope you had a great Birthday and Happy Thanksgiving!
Jess

Zelda Wants Cake !

Happy Birthday !

Hope you had a truly a WILD AND PRECIOUS, attention filled, loving, and writing birthday. May all your wishes come true!!

The big day has been and gone already in Australia. I spent some time in the morning, as part of my usual journal writing ritual, pondering how I could spend this one wild and precious day. And I kept returning to nature. Is there anything more wild and precious than this?

What stymied me was time. When was I going to be able to fit this in around work and the other commitments I had during the day? The concern followed me around all day until the evening.

It was about 6pm and still very light, since we’re approaching the summer solstice down in this hemisphere. I was walking from the bus interchange to my Tai Chi lesson, held in the gymnasium of the local technical college. The situation was slightly unusual; I usually attend the Saturday morning class, and only walk this route on the way from, not the way to. I was excited. My teacher had just come back from his honeymoon and circumstances were finally allowing me to take this second class on Wednesday evening.

I said it was light. Usually there would be bright sunshine still, but there was a storm coming and it had become overcast. I was feeling just the tiniest bit cool, given that I was wearing a sleeveless top, so I hurried along.

I think it was the smell that hit me first, that gorgeous spicy scent of pine. The track that I walk passes through a grove of birches and a field, but it was the pines that caught me. The smell holds such wonderful memories for me and there was something beautiful about the lines of old, dark trunks and the contrast of fresh green branches with the brown carpet beneath.

My mind slowed itself and though “this is what it’s all about. This is that wild and precious moment I was looking for.” It gave me a peace that lingered through my Tai Chi and left me feeling fabulous afterward.

It may have been Dave’s birthday, but I was left with the feeling that he gave me a gift rather than the other way around.

So thank you, Dave. Thank you for helping me to open my eyes.

It was extraordinarily beautiful here, and happily where you were too? I hope you had a chance to savor the scent of brown sycamore leaves on the ground. Today I saw a yellow train. It is one of my favorites. Life is made up of great days with small pleasures, and the occasional wild and crazy aspect that mesmerizes us down to the soles of our feet.

For your birthday, I hope you had both.

A treat for your birthday.

Happy day!

Hope you have a great year!

A little cake for you!! I hope this year is filled with creativity, writing, reading and even discovering a little something new about the Lost Colony of Roanoke!

Cheers to you and Happy Birthday!!!

Boldly, brilliantly, unabashedly…..

Have a phenomenal birthday – and may all the days of this year bring forth more Wildness, Preciousness, Daveness, Delightfulness, Writingness, Adventures in you and all around you!

So, party acoutrements aside, this is what Dave really wants for his birthday: Action. To quote the guest of honor:

“Light a candle … Do anything that makes the world a better place… Dave is going to war, and he needs all the help he can get. Fund a loan on Kiva.org. Write a letter to your representative.Pick up trash on your way home. Feed someone, or give them your jacket. Turn your lights off when you’re not in the room. Or write your own call to arms and post it on your website. We haven’t much time, and we’ve got an entire planet to fix.”

How appropriate that today, on the eve of Thanksgiving, we take a moment to look outside ourselves and see that what we may take for granted may make a world of difference to someone in need. Sometimes I feel that the problems of the world are too big, that our small, individual efforts are nothing in comparison to the need, or the complexity of the ills out there. But Dave is right, and today, on the anniversary of his birth, he wants nothing wrapped in paper, no well wishes or hugs. What he wants is for us to look outside ourselves and get angry, become resolute, take action. So what will you do, today, and what will you do tomorrow? There are myriad opportunities, small, easy ones as well as the larger, collective ones. Let’s celebrate by making a difference. I’m going to adopt the goal to fund a loan on Kiva, and later drop off these gently used coats I just pulled from the closet at the Beth-el shelter. Then, there’s tomorrow. Maybe I’ll light a candle, and take some time to just be mindful, planful, for the actions to come.
Who’s with me?

;o)