music of the soul

This morning's almost full moon set was so compelling that I stepped out onto the deck, barefoot, at 6 AM to take a picture (my zoom lens stretched the sphere a bit, but you get the idea). Seconds later  it was gone. It 's a powerful moon for me. This year continues to discharge surreal (and some very real) elements and I wonder when and if they will end and if there will be a shift when we enter the new year. If, as some scientists say, there is no such thing as time and space, then I guess January 1st is meaningless in that context.

loss
My dear friend Phyllis's husband died on Friday. They married at 18 and 20 and were together for 71 years. He was a physicist and had Alzheimers. What could be worse? I completed a week-long writing/meditation silent retreat and then stayed with her. On Sunday, a funeral service was held on a muddy, sunny day in Taos in a tiny Jewish cemetery with only six graves, the mountains behind the rabbi were like a stage backdrop. It's been a bad year for husbands. Three of my friends lost theirs, mine had surgery that took months for recovery. My heart is full. My mind is racing. Old, important friends have reappeared in my life. You know who you are and I am completely unbalanced. I've taken to following my almost-86 year old brother's advice regarding Scotch at 4 PM -- and I'm writing like crazy. Getting the book mss. finalized. A lengthy essay and photographs will appear soon in Stitching Resistance (Solis Press, England) and a poem appeared in Adobe Walls. So there's good and bad. Life, I guess.

My dear friend Mag stayed here for a week, then both of us were together at the retreat. The home she used to live in here in Taos was dismantled after many years and she gave me a very special gift. This Limoges tiny porcelain pill box that belonged to her grandmother.  
Poetry is the music of the soul.

I march on. Many things tantalize and beckon and I no longer expect specific outcomes. The universe will unfold as it will. It seems that art critics and whiskey critics have attended the same courses and here's something I ran into today re Dewer's Scotch that my brother will appreciate (it's such a poem!):

Dewers dances nimbly across the palate, offering quick pinpricks of light malt sugar, pears, Madagascar vanilla, honey and a whisper of peat smoke.

I like the peat smoke part and am ready to leave for Scotland right now!