A Community is Born

One year ago today I posted my first blog. What started out from Santa Fe as music and movie reviews, with some metaphysics thrown in, has evolved into something quite different than I originally imagined. Both the place and the postings. Each time I sat down to write, something else emerged. It was as though my blog had its own ideas, its own plan for how this was all going to go. Some mornings, while still lying in bed, lines would come in and I knew I had to get up and get them down, there was an idea percolating that wanted to be expressed. Sometimes, I was completely surprised by what showed up. I sat down and watched the ideas spill out. Other times I assisted a bit more as I worked through an idea, waiting patiently, more or less, for it to be realized. I never intended to get into reminiscing about the past, but some of my stories had been waiting years to be told, like "An Old Black Van and a Ripe Yellow Pear." And there they were, all dressed up in colors and imagery, ready to go.

It's been a good year for self-discovery, a constant unfolding. Perhaps a tad nomadic, pulling up camp every few months for other pastures and other possibilities; all springing from my deep desire to more fully understand our connection to each other.

I'd been thinking for some time about community, how we create community, how we sustain it, how we find the right people to share it with, people that have similar, yet diverse, outlooks. When I first mentioned this to a friend from Santa Fe, he said it sounded good, but we agreed we didn't want to spend any time sitting around the communal table and discussing who burned the beans. We both like our privacy, our quiet alone time, but want to feel supported in life, as though there is a group that listens and cares, understands and accepts.

For the first few months, I blogged only for myself. And that was fine. I love the process of writing. As the months rolled by, a few visitors stopped by my blog and then decided to pay regular visits. I visited their places, too. A community was born. A "society of friends." I could not have gone out and recruited a finer group to commune with, to share my life with. We have created, what is for me, a support system of love and caring out of what might first appear to be total strangers. But we know better. And as our community of souls expands to embrace a world we love, each of us, in our own way, is helping to make it a really fine place to be. And no one is worrying about who burned the beans.


I bring to you, for your listening and viewing pleasure, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," from The Beatles film, "Yellow Submarine," just because it's so darn cool.  Have a beautiful day, my friends, my family.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOO8-Jp-xsg