Peace and love from the top of Mount Tabor

Windy, but not too cold, is how I would describe it.  That's how it is during this solstice epoch in Inner Southeast.  Up on top of Tabor, the wind is high and strong.  The shaggy needled arms of Douglas-firs bend and sigh, heavy as the grief of a mother bereft.  The asphalt circlet on Tabor's crown is wet from the occasional droplets that fall from thin, ghostly clouds, but you couldn't really say it is raining.  Not by Portland standards.  I'd say "sprinkling" is closer to the mark.  And it's dry under the big Dougs.  A Douglas-fir canopy is much umbrella.

In this stage of my spiritual voyage, I've still got a few of those Christian-Pagan traditions by which I was raised hanging around.  And so, I send out sincere best wishes to each and every person who lives in my heart.  And there are a lot of you! 

Things are going just fine for me and my African honey bee in our little corner of this rain-soaked earthly paradise.  We are both gainfully employed and happy.  When that day comes for me to settle my accounts, the year 2010 will certainly be registered on the positive side of the ledger.

And, for any of you who are struggling with doubt or despair, if I might, let me reassure you.  This is a very beautiful world we live in.  Very, very beautiful.

We shall hear the angels, we shall see the whole sky all diamonds, we shall see how all earthly evil, all our sufferings, are drowned in the mercy that will fill the whole world. And our life will grow peaceful, tender, sweet as a caress. . . . In your life you haven’t known what joy was; but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait. . . . We shall rest.  --Anton Chekov

Peace!